Yesterday we reported the alarming news that the tactics-focused online RPG Shadowbane was currently without a publisher after being allegedly dropped by Gathering of Developers. However our subsequent discussions with two Wolfpack team members has assured us that the Mac version of this game is completely inseparable from the PC version, and simultaneous development and publishing of both versions will continue.

While neither staff member would speak on the record, as they are most likely negotiating with other publishers at this time, both said repeatedly that they are 100% behind the Mac OS version of the title and wouldn't even consider separating its development or dropping it in favor of the Windows version. As we reported some time ago, Wolfpack's Chief Technology Officer is indeed a Mac user and will program on nothing else, so our future in this MMORPG is guaranteed.

In related news, several sources pointed us towards a thread on the official Shadowbane message boards in which Wolfpack team member 'Warden' (all of the team members go by their RPG character name) also voiced his support for the Mac OS version of the title. He explains how they have planned for a hybrid release of the title from the very beginning, which will be their strategy should they find a publisher less enthusiastic about the Mac OS version than Gathering of Developers was. Here is his post:

Our plan is to do joint packaging for both the PC and the Macintosh -- single CDrom that contains both versions of the client software, wrapped up nicely in a single box marked "Shadowbane for the PC or Macintosh Computers." This works nicely for a couple reasons; not only does it pushes both product versions out through a single distribution channel, but it also makes it hard to do anything BUT a joint release.

Today we are pleased to announce the debut of our new database-driven Features section. The major improvements to this section of the Inside Mac Games website include a new article list page with a cleaner layout that can be sorted by Date or by Title, and a new viewer page for reading the articles that includes new navigation controls and sidebar information throughout each article. Though it is not visible, the new Features section also includes an extensive related items system which will form the basis of our powerful new search engine--watch for that in the near future.

With the new Features section, IMG has now been completely rebuilt to run on our powerful database. Having cleared this final hurdle in this long project will allow us to begin to improve the site in significant ways. There are several miscellanous components of our site yet to be automated, such as our Release Dates page, and work on our new search engine will begin immediately, so there are plenty of improvements yet to come.

Please bear with us while we take the time to enter all our old articles into the new system. As always we welcome your feedback and suggestions for any part of our site--especially the new Features section.

Scott Kevil sends word that his popular Mac-only game finder GameRanger now supports the recent release of Monopoly Casino. The game is published by MacSoft with Westlake Interactive doing the Mac port. It features many Monopoly-themed versions of games like blackjack, poker, keno, and much more. Here's an excerpt from the press release with more on the game:

In Monopoly Casino, get ready for a totally unique gaming experienceoffering all the thrills and excitement of 'Vegas combined with theclassic fun of Monopoly. Win big in a fantastic 3-D world featuring allthe Monopoly icons you grew up with and all your favorite casino games,including the hottest Monopoly slots available in 'Vegas today!

From poker and roulette to blackjack and slots, it's casino fun foreveryone. Play all the most popular casino games in a 3D Monopolycasino. Choose a favorite token, pick a game on a deed card, and tryyour luck on over 40 Monopoly themed games with over 200 variations.

Ron DuCros of Dark Shadow Software has announced the official launch of Star Conquest, a Mac-only game of strategic war in outer space. The $30 shareware title is currently in production, and should be available at the end of April. Here is the press release:

Dark Shadow Software Limited is pleased to announce the launch of StarConquest.

Star Conquest is a turn-based strategic war game. Designed exclusivelyfor the Apple Macintosh range of computers.

It may be played as a single player, multi-player or network game. Upto ten human players can play, accompanied by up to ten computercontrolled players. GameRanger is supported for finding other playerson the Internet.

Your objective is to guide your species in its expansion to all cornersof the known universe. You start with two or more populated planets anda small number of star ships. Using these star ships you have toexplore and colonise other star systems before attempting to conqueryour opponents.

Mumbo Jumbo's Andrew Meggs has updated his personal Antennahead web site with more info on the status of Myth III: The Wolf Age. In his last update, he noted he had demoted himself to a normal programmer in order to get work for E3 done. Now it seems this has worked so well, he's back in a management role, training others on the team with his new tools. He also notes Bill "Burger" Heineman might be brought on to work on the project as well. Here's the update:

My attempts at shirking project leadership to "just get the bloody code writtenalready" have failed by way of succeeding -- the suddenly rapid pace of enginedevelopment has me back out from behind the keyboard to provide support andtraining for the artists who've suddenly got a lot of new features and toolsto learn about and play with, which means that engine development isn't asquick anymore. I really need two of me, one to write code and one to coordinatethe use of it, but failing a sudden advance in cloning I might try to borrowsome Burgertime after Fighter Squadron is gold. Can someone remind me again howthe Myth 3 team is different from the Contraband team? :)

As you probably remember, Bill "Burger" Heineman and Meggs have worked together on many projects before, both at Logicware and Contraband. We'll keep you posted on any new updates for this prequel to the series.
Antennahead Web Site

We're proud to announce that three IMG Network Sites are nominees for the Second Annual Applelinks Moofie Awards, sponsored by MacSoft and Freeverse Software. MacBaldur, MacDeusEx, and SimsForMac have all been selected as 'Best Documentary' (game fan site) in Applelinks' Oscaresque nomination. The best part about this awards ceremony is that you play the role of the 'Academy,' in that you get to vote on all of the categories yourself. Head over to Applelinks page now to place your votes for best fan site, as well as for the many other categories. We wish all of the nominees the best and hope they continue to provide great fan coverage well into 2001!

The German-based e.p.i.c. Interactive sent us a note about Earth 2140 now shipping. This real-time strategy game april 5th 2001: Realtime strategy game EARTH 2140 now shipping features 70 different vehicles and buildings, 50 missions, six-player multiplayer, and a CD-quality stereo soundtrack. It also has relatively low system requirements, only needing 32MB of RAM and a 180 Mhz PowerPC. Here's the update in full:

e.p.i.c. interactive entertainment today announces that its realtimestrategy game EARTH 2140 is now shipping for the Macintosh. EARTH 2140 letsyou go to war with either the forces of the Eurasian Dynasty or the UnitedCivilised States in a deadly struggle for the Earth´s last resources.

To take part in the last war on Earth you will need a Mac with OS 8.6 orbetter, 32 Mbyte Ram and 180 Mhz PPC CPU.

You can find more information on EARTH 2140 in the projects section of ourhomepage.

Head over to the e.p.i.c site for info on the game's story, buildings, and other units. Check out the demo of the game at Macgamefiles now if you haven't already done so.

We also contacted the company about plans for distribution in North America. They note that while the Mac-only site Mac-O-Rama will likely have copies, they are also looking into other, larger distributors as well. We'll keep you posted as more info becomes available.

ZSculpt Entertainment, producers of the upcoming Return to Dark Castle has released Beta 2 of the Demo for the game. It includes some bug fixes and a couple changes to the level structure. No word yet on a final release date. It's worth a download if you've got the bandwidth to spare.

Stomped has a new interview with Tim Gerritsen of HumanHead talking more about their upcoming expansion pack, Rune: Halls of Valhalla. The add-on to Rune will contain many multiplayer enhancements, including new maps, models, skins, and modes of play. In the interview, Gerritsen also speak about the improved networking performace (read: less lag in your games), the improved defensive techniques, and how the game will be a stand-alone product. Here's more about how you won't need the original Rune to play:

Stomped: Why was the decision made to make Halls of Valhalla playable as a stand-alone game as well as an add-on for Rune?

Gerritsen: Quite simply, if the game was only an expansion, we would only possibly reach the original players of Rune. We felt it made more sense to expand our market than limit it. We hope that players who didn't want to play the single player game will be enticed by a multiplayer only game for $20. It's a way for us to reach beyond the original players of the game and expand the growing Rune MP community.

People who never played Rune before will get all the original multiplayer characters, and the new ones, which is over 35 characters to play. We also are including all the original mulitplayer maps as well as the new ones, so they will get over 40 maps to play on. With four separate play modes to choose from, that's pretty significant content for $20.

For people who own Rune, they get 16 new characters and 34 new maps to play on, as well as two new modes. That's a lot of content to add to the game, especially since the original game only had 7 multiplayer maps.

So those that aren't interesting in the singleplayer game can think of Halls of Valhalla as a sort of Q3A-like multiplayer version of Rune. The bargain price of $20 also definitely makes the game appealing.

Be sure to head over to Stomped and check out the rest of the interview, plus the new screen shots of the add-on in action. The Mac version of Halls of Valhalla is expected out mere weeks after the PC is released later this month.

Computer Games Online has recently posted a column by Phil Steinmeyer, designer on the upcoming island nation management sim Tropico, titled Into the Sausage Factory: Improving the Interface (thanks to VoodooExtreme for the info). Steinmeyer discusses and gives advice on creating user interfaces (UI)for computer games and uses the development of Tropico's own UI as an example, revealing some details about this upcoming title.

Tropico will have a one-screen interface as opposed to the multiple screens often found in other management games, with no branching off to secondary screens. An interface bar located at the bottom of the screen will contain all pertinent information. It will also be divided into four main areas, titled as "messages, radar, a center tab area, and a round thing-a-majig" by Steinmeyer.

The main controls will feature some interesting functionalities that should make play more enjoyable. The message bar will feature mouseover help, displaying information about each control if a player lets the cursor hover over a control for a few seconds. The radar will rotate to match the playing field, eliminating the need for players to mentally line up a static radar to a dynamic world. The "round thing-a-majig" is the catch-all animation window, in which animations, graphical close-ups of people, and other eye-candies will be displayed.

The center tab is described as "the heart of the interface." When selected, it will show one of several displays about people/places in gameplay, depending on what map object or button has been selected.

For players interested in detailed stats, an almanac of sorts has been added. It details stats such as crop yields over the past 5 years, number of acres planted, and the like. Information deemed important is placed on the front pages, and clicking on any piece of info will give a full detailed report on it.

The art design of the interface itself seems to have gone through some interesting permutations, as narrated by Steinmeyer:

[Me]: That window sucks. Do something different.

[Paul]: I just spent a week on this! All right, what do you want it to looklike?

Jesse Spears sent along word that his Harpoon3 site has been updated with news on how the game performs in OS X. While he notes the performace is better, in some cases, than normal OS 9.1, there are some glitches which need addressing. Spears also promises a fully OS X version, though he's waiting for updates from both Apple and Codewarrior before he moves forward. Here's a clip from the update with some tips:

First, the full screen intro movie doesn't play properly. I could hear the sound, but nothing showed up on the screen. The in-game videos worked fine.

Second, I encountered a crash bug in one of the Game Colors dialogs (I'm not sure which one). I can't reproduce it on OS9.1, so it will have to wait till I get OSX on my own machine.

Third, anyone that's playing on OSX will probably want to hide the dock. If you don't have your dock set to Auto-Hide already, try Command-Shift-D to toggle the dock on and off (I think that was it).

Performance wise, it was very impressive. H3 under classic on a 400MHz iMac DV seemed a lot faster than on my G4/450/450 under OS9.1. Most of the speed up seemed to be in areas where the hard drive is accessed (for instance, loading scenarios was nigh instanteous, and loading the Platform Display dialog was extremely fast). I think this is because under OS9.1 (and older), the file access routines have a great deal of 68k code in them, where as OSX has a native file system, and since Classic calls through OSX it gets the new file system for free.

So Harpoon3 fans should be able to get the game running in Classic, just be aware of the issues. We'll let you know when a native OS X version is ready. In other news, the Windows programmer -- mentioned earlier to be looking at the Harpoon3 code -- has been revealed to be his brother. Head over to the Harpoon3 site for more info.
IMG News: Harpoon4 Cancelled, H3 Status CheckHarpoon 3 Web Site